Also this issue: Piano Forte Roman Polanski's The Pianist finds strength in quiet. -Cindy Fuchs Playing His Part Adrien Brody tunes up. -Cindy Fuchs Almost Perfect In Talk to Her, Javier Cémara's attentive nurse seems like the perfect guy -- with just one huge catch. -Sam Adams Screen Picks -Sam Adams continuing Showtimes Repertory Film

January 2- 8, 2003

movie shorts

new

Nicholas Nickleby

Understandably, Dickens novels often make for weighty, overcrowded movies. The episodic structures, the huge casts of characters, the shifting locations -- all add up to lots of material to cover, and deciding what to trim can be as painful as actually trying to mount the whole business. Happily, Douglas McGrath (former SNL writer and co-writer, with Woody Allen, of Bullets Over Broadway -- not to mention the director of the Gwyneth Paltrow-starring Emma) is quite undaunted, indeed, quite in love with his material. He lets cleverly composed images carry much of the narrative (and develop relationships), while paring dialogue to approximate human rhythms, rather than speeches. As Nicholas, British Queer As Folk-er Charlie Hunnam more than makes up for his dreary turn as Katie Holmes' doomed beau in Abandon, evincing wry charm here. Even better, he's aided by a swell lot of troupers, including Christopher Plummer as Uncle Ralph, Romola Garai as Kate, Jamie Bell as Smike, the indefatigable Jim Broadbent as the one-eyed Squeers and Juliet Stevenson as the evil Mrs., Edward Fox as the snivelly Hawk, Tom Courtenay as noble Newman Noggs, Nathan Lane, Timothy Spall, and even Anne Hathaway (survivor of The Princess Diaries). As usual in Dickens, family extends beyond blood, but blood will do you in if you're bad. Here, the eccentric plot and character bits leading to such enlightenment range from kooky to horrifying, and are, for the most part, deftly drawn. --Cindy Fuchs (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)